Tag Archives: health services

Community Health: Context

Community Health explores the health care needs of various ethnic and cultural population groups and the cultural, social, political and economic factors involved in the access and utilization of health care systems by diverse groups of people in the US. Students are required to meet with state and/or local health care contacts in their communities to identify challenges the community is facing and the methods by which area professionals attempt to address these challenges.

There are field assignments threaded through the course in which students must talk with public health officials from their communities. The information they gather through the interviews and their own research helps them develop their culminating project: a strategic health plan for their communities.

Screenshot of a blog entry accessed by clicking one of the markers

MapBlog Activity

One of the benefits of online education is that students often come from diverse geographical locations, and each location comes with unique challenges or unique methods of dealing with common challenges. As students conduct their field assignments, they post information that they’ve gleaned from their contacts and research on the mapblog. The mapblog provides a great way for students to share field results with their classmates, comment on one another’s results, and discuss their communities’ challenges and the attempts to solve them.

Through this activity, students can gain new insights and fresh perspectives that will assist them as they develop a strategic plan for their communty’s health.